ABSTRACT
The decade which followed the Second World War was a Golden Age for the film exhibitors. Let us forget for a moment that in Britain film attendance began to decrease as early as 1948. In Europe 1955 saw the peak of cinema admissions: more than 3,000 million tickets were bought, which means that, statistically, every European, including the new-born, went to the movies sixteen times. I must admit that my figures are to a large extent artificial since they combine those of different countries. Contrasts between nations regarding entertainment as a whole, and more specifically film consumption, are important and extremely instructive. But seen from outside-say from Hollywood which at the time was losing a large proportion of its domestic clients1-Europe was a wonderful market, ready to swallow an enormous quantity of cinematic productions. As film history is generally organized according to the divisions between languages and national boundaries, little has been said up to now about this extraordinary juncture which Europe went through in the 1950s, and it is hard for us to realize that this passing fancy (it did not last more than fifteen years) was common to the whole continent. Also it is said that the movies made at the time were not exceptionally good. However, we are not concerned here with judging their quality but with understanding the relationship between the Europeans and their cinemas, and as soon as we take a look at the statistics we guess that something unusual happened during these years. This is what I would like to throw some light on in this chapter.
